GFWL - A rant (is there any other kind of thread about this?)

I bought some Arkham City DLC in the last Steam sale and finally got around to checking it out. Or trying to. They DLC was showing against the game in Steam, yet I couldn't find it anywhere in game. I thought maybe I had to beat the game first. Having now done that, still no DLC... I hit the various internets and found out I had to redeem the CD key for the DLC that already shows in Steam, with GFWL. WTF #1? I already have one content manager for this game, what kind of shit is this? So I put in the code and try to redeem it; it then tells me I have to download another part of GFWL or else I can't redeem the code. WTF #2. I do this, then try again and it tells me there is an error with GFWL and I have to restart. WTF #3. I am getting really pissed off at this point. Starting the game again, it then gives me the option to start downloading 2GB, which Steam should have done silently months ago when I bought the damn thing. I can't check download progress without tabbing out of the game to a browser. WTF#4.

They basically did everything possible to make this the shittiest experience since I tried to use GFWL for Street Fighter IV. How do they ever get people to integrate with this thing? It has to be a Ferrari full of hookers and cash, no one in their right mind would poison their game with this worthless garbage otherwise. Although I am still not comfortable with Steam as a gatekeeper for a good percentage of my games, at least using it is not like fucking a cactus with tabasco for lube.

It's junk. It tells me i should upgrade each time i load Bioshock 2 and yet if i make the mistake of clicking yes i'll have to uninstall gfwl and bioshock2 and then reinstall to fix it. The only reason i can think of that anyone would use it is because it's probably integrated with xbox development. Or, they hate us.

The really insulting thing about GFWL is that Microsoft knows how utterly broken it is and yet does nothing to fix it. Posts go back to 2009 detailing the misery inflicted upon consumers. In 2011 MS released a statement promising to make the system better. And here we are in late 2012 still feeling ripped off.

Ignoring Alpha, yeah, GFWL is pretty fucking bad. I just picked up Arkham City recently myself. I didn't have DLC trouble, but that's only because the redundant security code thingy did not hide itself from me. It still did everything possible to make itself a pain in the ass, including restarting every related program and also my computer.

GDWL is not a user-friendly program and killed my desire to play the game for the day I dealt with its gauntlet. Finally got around to playing a day or so later when I wasn't so frustrated with the whole thing.

Still annoyed it kicks me out of the XBox every time I want to play Arkham City.

I recently picked up the Batman dlc too and ran into the same confusion. Didn't have the update problems, just had to reenter the keys in gfwl. Ya, its annoying. I don't mind gfwl, but I certainly don't like it.

GfWL is a horrible piece of shitware. I experienced it first with BioShock 2 and had nothing but problems.

1. I had to wait for an additional download & install before I could play. No big deal.2. After about 3 months, GfWL needed to "update" and when I agreed to update it locked up. After repeated attempts to reinstall GfWL, without any success, I gave up on playing BioShock 2. 3. Eventually I blew away every bit of GfWL and BioShock 2 on my system, and reloaded. Which was not fun and a tremendous waste of my time. After that, it worked.

Lesson: I will NEVER buy another game that uses GfWL. I really wanted to buy Arkham City, but not with that crap on it.

What I want from GFWL is to install, let me log-in, and then leave me the fuck alone. I made a mistake with Arkham Asylum. I thought, 'Self - you know this has GFWL, let us do the smart thing, uninstall it, and then reinstall from the Microsoft Website so we do not have to go through that terrible 'update' process we did with Fallout 3.'

Apparently that was the worst thing you could do. The version on the MS website was definitely not the most recent. It is around here somewhere (likely the random thread) where I had to go through around three or four updates - ALL which required a restart of the computer. Each time GFWL updated then Steam would have to run the mini-reinstall when I started up Batman. All told, I think I was over an hour invested after I was done.

Then the fucking software would not accept my login. I even tested it on Hotmail, and so the password was definitely right. Even resetting the password did not work. I had to setup a new fucking profile through the GFWL page before I could play the game - by which time it was too late to play anyways, and I just went to bed.

HAHAHAHAHA! Fucking beautiful. I decided to load up GFWL because I figured that I might as well update it. Then it shit the bed:

1. Apparently my login is screwed up - again (I only use this login for GFWL)2. When I click to resolve GFWL opens up IE, not my default browser3. The fucking link from the program goes to a broken page

Then the fucking software would not accept my login. I even tested it on Hotmail, and so the password was definitely right. Even resetting the password did not work. I had to setup a new fucking profile through the GFWL page before I could play the game - by which time it was too late to play anyways, and I just went to bed.

Ahhh yeah I forgot about this. Same thing happened to me the second time I went to play Arkham City and it basically ended up with me losing all the progress I had done under my previous login. Lucky I hadn't played long or I would have been slightly unhappy.

Seriously, just boycott this GFWL shit. Don't buy any games that have it. Send a message. Vote with your dollar. Stay strong, plenty of other good games to play. Tell them you won't take this kind of abuse.

Hmmm. Class action lawsuit? Consumers paid money in good faith to play a game which was unavailable for play solely due to bugs in GfWL. Microsoft, aware of the bugs, did nothing to resolve them over a period of several years.

I had a big rant about it on some Steam thread when Arkham City was one sale. It's ridiculous that to play AC, I had to log into Steam (one layer of DRM) and THEN log into GfWL (another layer of DRM). What's the fucking point of having two layers of DRM?

And GfWL would take ~30s to accept the password, and sometimes just time out (a 2nd attempt always worked in a few seconds). So not only is the concept of layering DRM on DRM stupid, MS' execution of their DRM layer is piss-poor. As good as the game was, I dreaded starting it up because of how long it took to actually get into the game. All that annoyance for no pay-off for me whatsoever.

GodOfEmptiness wrote:

Seriously, just boycott this GFWL shit. Don't buy any games that have it. Send a message. Vote with your dollar. Stay strong, plenty of other good games to play. Tell them you won't take this kind of abuse.

Steam hides that information in an illogical section - in some sidebar on the game page. Illogical to me anyway... I looked for it before buying AC, and was shocked to find it when I ran the game.

I got the perfect solution to any and all GFWL rants: don't buy games that have this . I know sometimes its easier said that done, but my 110+ Steam collection only has one GFWL game, GTA4, and that was bought when it was $5 so there!

But I never understood why game companies feel the need to include GFWL shit, who in the world likes it? Do these idiots even check out forums to see people EVERYWHERE bitching about it? I don't care if it's a xbox thing, if it's on PC, no reason to infest the superior PC gaming experience with inferior junk that no one in their right mind wants nor cares about.

I got the perfect solution to any and all GFWL rants: don't buy games that have this . I know sometimes its easier said that done, but my 110+ Steam collection only has one GFWL game, GTA4, and that was bought when it was $5 so there!

Same. But I've still never played it. After fighting with GFWL for 45 mins, I gave up.

I can understand people being frustrated with GFWL. What I can't understand are people who absolutely cannot get it to work. It takes a few extra minutes the first time I install it on a fresh computer install, but shit... I'm a complete fucking idiot and I can handle it.

Diff'rent strokes, I guess. But I have 8 games that use it, and only ever had issues with Arkham City. (Both with the install and the retarded method of handling DLC)

Seriously, just boycott this GFWL shit. Don't buy any games that have it. Send a message. Vote with your dollar. Stay strong, plenty of other good games to play. Tell them you won't take this kind of abuse.

I have skipped over a number of games in recent years, usually due to DRM, and its a real shame when you miss out on a quality game because of stupid publisher decisions. I am in the same situation now with Far Cry 3; looks like a great game, but Ubisoft won't see a dime from me until they get rid of their invasive DRM. I might have made the same choice with Arkham City if I noticed it had GFWL before I bought it. The problem is in this case that I really enjoyed this game. Frankly, it was fucking awesome. So what to do?

I am in the same situation now with Far Cry 3; looks like a great game, but Ubisoft won't see a dime from me until they get rid of their invasive DRM.

What exactly is invasive about it? They already got rid of always-online DRM - now it's just a one-time activation.

I am still reading stories about people having issues with the single player game when the Ubisoft servers were down. Happy to be corrected if this is not the case. Obviously, I don't have any first hand information.

Seriously, just boycott this GFWL shit. Don't buy any games that have it. Send a message. Vote with your dollar. Stay strong, plenty of other good games to play. Tell them you won't take this kind of abuse.

Seriously, just boycott this GFWL shit. Don't buy any games that have it. Send a message. Vote with your dollar. Stay strong, plenty of other good games to play. Tell them you won't take this kind of abuse.

It wouldn't accept my login either, and I found that it was because there was some click-through license agreement that I had to accept. The link it sent me to didn't work and I had to back out to the main site and log in from there.

I can understand people being frustrated with GFWL. What I can't understand are people who absolutely cannot get it to work. It takes a few extra minutes the first time I install it on a fresh computer install, but shit... I'm a complete fucking idiot and I can handle it.

Diff'rent strokes, I guess. But I have 8 games that use it, and only ever had issues with Arkham City. (Both with the install and the retarded method of handling DLC)

You have 8 games, and so you are probably running GFWL often enough that it is actually updated regularly, and has not corrupted your login. I on the other hand run it sporadically (sometimes only once a year). I have to assume the client gets screwed up because my client might be, say, seven updates out of date, but Microsoft only applies four updates.

I finally figured out my issue from above. It was not listed in Microsoft's unhelpful issues database, but using Google I found out it was related to agreeing to a new privacy policy. Which was not linked in that website, but on the XBox Live website. Yay.

I can understand people being frustrated with GFWL. What I can't understand are people who absolutely cannot get it to work. It takes a few extra minutes the first time I install it on a fresh computer install, but shit... I'm a complete fucking idiot and I can handle it.

No, that's the problem dude. A lot of the time GFWL is so unpredictable that guides and work-arounds used by others don't always work. Then you've got the problem of triple-layered bullshit. With GTA4, for example, you not only have the Steam layer and the GFWL layer, but then you have to also sign in to some Rockstar thing. Somewhere within this 30-website-registration-cluster-fuck of equally and mutually pointless marketing and DRM gonewild, it's just impossible to get the fucking game going. And as a dude with a family and a fulltime job, I'm not disposed to spending rand(0-3hrs) to get a game to play. Because that's all the time I ever have to actually play said game.

Seriously, just boycott this GFWL shit. Don't buy any games that have it. Send a message. Vote with your dollar. Stay strong, plenty of other good games to play. Tell them you won't take this kind of abuse.

Look at all them cliches.

You may call them cliches. I call them convictions. I stand by what I said. I won't *knowingly* buy a game with GFWL. Nothing more than Steam DRM will I tolerate. But thanks for you contribution to the discussion, do you have an opinon on the matter or any content to add?

I'm with hambone above... fucking random shit from keeping me from actively *playing the game*. The more SHIT you pile in the way the more I will ignore you and your future efforts and reward other developers with my purchases. I won't bend over and take it.

Oh, I see, as long as there is a loophole for GFWL then you are fine with buying the games. Instead of boycotting them.

I never installed the GFWL disabler mod mentioned above. My steam version does not have GFWL. I have completed the game (as much as you can with a Fallout game anyway). I have never had to install GFWL or make an account ever. But keep trying.